In The Days of Giants A Book of Norse Tales

Page: 85

"Balder the beautiful is dead!" the cry
went echoing through all the world, and
everything that was sorrowed at the sound
of the Æsir's weeping.

Balder's brothers lifted up his beautiful
body upon their great war shields and bore
him on their shoulders down to the seashore.
For, as was the custom in those days, they
were going to send him to Hela, the Queen
of Death, with all the things he best had loved
in Asgard. And these were,—after Nanna
his wife,—his beautiful horse, and his ship
Hringhorni. So that they would place Balder's
body upon the ship with his horse beside
him, and set fire to this wonderful funeral239
pile. For by fire was the quickest passage to
Hela's kingdom.

But when they reached the shore, they
found that all the strength of all the Æsir was
unable to move Hringhorni, Balder's ship,
into the water. For it was the largest ship
in the world, and it was stranded far up the
beach.

"Even the giants bore no ill-will to Balder,"
said Father Odin. "I heard the thunder
of their grief but now shaking the hills. Let
us for this once bury our hatred of that race
and send to Jotunheim for help to move the
ship."

So they sent a messenger to the giantess
Hyrrockin, the hugest of all the Frost People.
She was weeping for Balder when the message
came.

"I will go, for Balder's sake," she said.
Soon she came riding fast upon a giant wolf,
with a serpent for the bridle; and mighty
she was, with the strength of forty Æsir. She
dismounted from her wolf-steed, and tossed
the wriggling reins to one of the men-heroes
who had followed Balder and the
Æsir from Valhalla. But he could not hold240
the beast, and it took four heroes to keep
him quiet, which they could only do by
throwing him upon the ground and sitting
upon him in a row. And this mortified them
greatly.

Then Hyrrockin the giantess strode up
to the great ship and seized it by the prow.
Easily she gave a little pull and presto! it
leaped forward on its rollers with such force
that sparks flew from the flint stones underneath
and the whole earth trembled. The
boat shot into the waves and out toward open
sea so swiftly that the Æsir were likely to
have lost it entirely, had not Hyrrockin
waded out up to her waist and caught it by
the stern just in time.

Thor was angry at her clumsiness, and
raised his hammer to punish her. But the
other Æsir held his arm.

"She cannot help being so strong," they
whispered. "She meant to do well. She did
not realize how hard she was pulling. This
is no time for anger, brother Thor." So Thor
spared her life, as indeed he ought, for her
kindness.

Then Balder's body was borne out to the241
ship and laid upon a pile of beautiful silks,
and furs, and cloth-of-gold, and woven sunbeams
which the dwarfs had wrought. So
that his funeral pyre was more grand than
anything which had ever been seen. But
when Nanna, Balder's gentle wife, saw them
ready to kindle the flames under this gorgeous
bed, she could bear her grief no longer.
Her loving heart broke, and they laid her
beside him, that they might comfort each
other on their journey to Hela. Thor touched
the pile gently with his hammer that makes
the lightning, and the flames burst forth,
lighting up the faces of Balder and Nanna
with a glory. Then they cast upon the fire
Balder's war-horse, to serve his master in the
dark country to which he was about to go.
The horse was decked with a harness all of
gold, with jewels studding the bridle and
headstall. Last of all Odin laid upon the
pyre his gift to Balder, Draupnir, the precious
ring of gold which the dwarf had made, from
which every ninth night there dropped eight
other rings as large and brightly golden.